How to live with this

I was just diagnosed yesterday with IBS on top of all my other health problems. This is really depressing not to mention painful. I know this is really awful to say but when they told me I started thinking great why didn't God just let me die from a heart attack in 2005. I'm not suicidal or any thing like that it just gets to a point where you think how much does God think one person can handle. I'm almost afraid to go to the doc anymore for fear they will find another illness. I told my hubby I might as well just make up a list of all the stuff that runs in the family and hand it to the doc when I go in for something and say here take your pick since I have over half the stuff that runs in the family so far. In fact I had thought this was diverticulitis. I don't know what's worse that or IBS. I already suffer from ulcertive colitis and severe acid reflux disease. They are currently working on a solution for the acid reflux and had thought my colitis was out of remission because of the problems I was having but when they went in and looked yesterday that wasn't what they found. I was on pain pills for 6 weeks just so I could sleep at night without the horrible pain that would start in the middle of the night and last for like 3 hours before having a bunch of diarrhea. I had to stop the pain pills because they thought it was causing some of the acid reflux. It doesn't seem to have made a difference. Any tips on how to live with this awful disease? I haven't a clue other than not eating which isn't an option. I have lost 15 pounds from not eating much. Does IBS cause lack of appetite? I'm not sure if it is from that or the heartburn. Oh well I need to lose weight anyway but this isn't too fun a way to do it. Barb  

Hi Lil, not sure what IBD is. I have had ulcertive colitis for years since 1986 so am no stranger to pain and diarrhea. I have never had constipation problems, but for some reason I had a really hard time with the prep for the colonoscopy. I had to strain most of the time to even go and I had really horrible pain which I had never had before either. I don't know why I had the problems with it since before I even drank the gallon of stuff or took the 4 pills I had diarhhea 2x. On June 1st my heart doc put me on Crestor and it started bothering my acid reflux right away. I lasted a week on that and then the stomach pain got so bad I couldn't stand it. The reflux didn't go away after I quit taking the Crestor and it irritated my asthma so bad that my doc put me on singulair along with my advair inhaler for my asthma. That didn't help so then he was worried about my heart and did a test to check my stent. That was ok. I started having problems with diarrhea and just thought it was my ulcertive colitis because of the lack of sleep and stress from the asthma and acid reflux acting up. My health problems seem to go like that in a chain reaction. I had never had the awful bloating before and hours of pain and gurgling around in my stomach before having diarrhea like 3 hours later. My doc finaly put me on a pain killer called ultram because the pain would hit at 2am and the vicadin was too hard on my empty stomach. That did work for the pain part anyway but the stomach doc took me off it because he was afraid it might be bothering the reflux. The usual med I take for cramps isn't working too well (chlordiazepoxide/clidium caps).  I ended up in the ER because I couldn't breath and had some blood in my diarrhea. So then they had to use the drug I dred most (steroids). I didn't have any more blood in my diarrhea and my asthma improved with that. I have been on Nexium since July 21st and it hasn't helped in fact I got worse and started having problems over last weekend with the asthma again so Monday I called the doc and he put me back on my carafate along with the Nexium. I've been on everything else for my stomach. I was being brushed off by my doc of 12 years as far as the heartburn went. He doesn't know what to do anymore with it since he has tried different meds and I have had the surgery that failed. The heartburn during the day went away but I still have it at night even though I have been sleeping on the couch almost sitting up. I am about at my witts end with the heartburn problem and now this other painful problem. I see the stomach doc again on the 25th of August but I may have to call him before then. I can't have this interfering with my job.  I guess you could say I'm a mess with all my problems. I feel like one anyway.
Barb